‘Media Production is dominated by global institutions, which sell their products and services to national audiences.’ To what extent do you agree with this statement?

In general, global institutions do appear to dominate media production. For example, in film, Disney is a major player owning over 4 of there own studios like ‘The Prospect Studios’. However, small national companies are not entirely out of the picture. In 2011, for example, Bedlam Productions and See Saw Films, both small UK companies, achieved massive success with ‘The Kings Speech’, proving that small, national companies can reach global audiences.

Disney is considered a global institution it owns its film companies such as Pixar and Touchstone Picture, it has theme parks, crises, radio stations and TV channels. You could say Disney uses all it ‘arms’ to help sell to its target audiences also with horizontal marketing. Disney’s target audience is aimed at children but also adults because there films have a double meaning and has adult jokes.

For example there new ‘Alice In Wonderland’ film is a fairytale aimed at children. However it sets a dark side to the traditional values aimed at the adults. It’s a British story and they use British actors.

Whereas ‘The Kings speech’ has similar strengths where it is a British traditional story, quite patriotic and uses famous British actors. For example ‘Helen Bonham Carter’. ‘The Kinds Speech’ reached global audiences with a mere production budget of £15m compared to Disney’s ‘Alice In Wonderland’ budget of £200m. Bedlam Productions and See Saw film would have had to use vertical marketing to compete with companies like Disney and the success of films like this show that they can achieve success.    

Both film companies used synergy method to distribute and sell their products. ‘The Kings Speech’ had interviews with famous actors that play characters, some of which are well know and may be role models for some people. However the methods of synergy used by Disney was much more advanced, they had online games and area in massive theme parks set out just for ‘Alice In Wonderland’. This shows the massive cost difference global institutions spend, also showing the massive budget differences to ‘The Kings Speech’.

Although Disney has the money to be at the forefront of media e.g. animation, online presents and up to date gaming. All this also raises audience awareness of specific products or types of products. Disney has a massive online presence with the ability to provide kids to interact with games while advertising, for example their new ‘Disney Princesses game’. However Digital media is getting cheaper and cheaper you creating your own websites, viral marketing etc. This is a massive advantage to small companies. Small film companies also advertise films in more simple ways such as newspapers, interview with characters, Sunday Supplements that get them noticed.

The consumption of film media is changing. You don’t just have to go to the cinema, you can download film watch them on TV and audio’s on the radio. This leads to massive profit and small companies benefit largely from this.

Another point that proves the difference in domination is the opening weekend gross revenue of the films. ‘The Kings Speech’ on the opening weekend grossed at £3.52m and ‘Alice In Wonderland’ had a gross profit at the opening weekend off £1.24b worldwide. Even though ‘Alice in Wonderland’ was always guaranteed to produce lots of money, the up-to date aspects of there media could of helped them to gain such a large different in figure.

To conclude I believe I have given evidence to say that media production isn’t all dominated by global institutions selling their products. ‘The Kings Speech’ and ‘Alice In Wonderland’ where both hugely successful and watched worldwide. However it has to be said Disney as a global company has managed to generate massive profits compared to ‘The kings Speech’ and are slightly more dominant in the media production then smaller companies.